


Latchkey

by avocadomoon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Grief, Healing, Post-War, Sirius Black Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26277790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avocadomoon/pseuds/avocadomoon
Summary: "I talk to my llamas," Abe says stubbornly.Sirius pauses warily, eyeing him with some concern. "...do they talk back?"
Relationships: Sirius Black & Aberforth Dumbledore, Sirius Black & Hermione Granger, Sirius Black & Nymphadora Tonks
Comments: 19
Kudos: 77
Collections: Alternate Universe Exchange 2020





	Latchkey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/gifts).



Aberforth Dumbledore (Abe to his friends, a very exclusive group that Sirius counts himself lucky to be part of) is not the _worst_ flatmate Sirius had ever had, but for the beard clippings in the sink alone, he is fairly high up on the list. Kreacher still holds the top spot of course (a racist house elf who once tried very earnestly to murder you was always going to take first prize, although Sirius always thought of him more as a cellmate than a housemate) and coming in at a close second is Bellatrix Lestrange, who had been housed in the cell next to him for several months in Azkaban before she was moved to solitary confinement for trying to off herself with a soup bowl. Close enough to count, in Sirius's estimation. 

There was also, of course, James Potter, who had claimed the bed next to his in the Gryffindor dormitory for the three consecutive school years between 1971 and 1975 until Sirius loudly threatened, on the first night of their fourth year, to commit seppuku if he had to spend one more year listening to James's wet dreams. This resulted in a three-week long feud involving some fairly vindictive pranks that kept escalating in severity until Remus finally got fed up with the both of them and put up a wall between their beds, made from a transfigured cabinet. Still, Sirius finds that he rather misses all of James's disgusting sounds and suspicious smells - perhaps even a bit more than he misses some of his good qualities, oddly. Both he and Remus agree that it's much more painful to remember the awkward and the annoying, the weird and irritating things about their lost friends, than it is to remember all the impressive, noble things, which were very nice and all, but not at all the whole of who they were, at the end of the day. If Sirius were pressed, by a biographer or something, to describe James Potter in a single word, it would probably be vulgar. Because he really was such a miserable twat, to be honest. (Sirius misses him dearly.)

Not that Sirius is planning on telling Harry any of those less-than-noble (and yet, deeply human) stories anytime soon. Maybe when he's older. Married with children of his own - maybe then Sirius will break out a few of the humiliating ones about Grandpa Potter, just for fun. 

"I'm offended on my son's behalf," Tonks tells him, "that you're not giving him first pick at your embarrassing stories about his ancestors."

Sirius refills her drink, like a very good bartender, and then takes the trick with a three of spades, which makes her groan out loud. "Technically speaking," he says, leading the next hand with a Queen of hearts, "since matrilineal lines of succession aren't acknowledged by the Ministry as per the Family Law Act of 1764, James isn't actually one of Teddy's ancestors legally speaking - "

"Oh, blow it out your arse," Tonks says, and trumps his Queen with a spade.

" - all I'm saying is, you better be nice to me if you want me to name your ruffian faerie child in my will," Sirius finishes. 

"Don't call my ruffian child a faerie," Tonks demands, and takes another trick, this time with an Ace that trumps Sirius's King. Typical. 

"I'm not convinced he isn't," Sirius says. "Have you checked his teeth lately? Overly long? Is he growing a beard?"

"He's five," Tonks says. 

"My point exactly," Sirius says. "Just the other night he stood right up at the dinner table and started proclaiming prophecy, right there in front of Remus and I. The eeriest thing. And Hermione suspects, don't you know, that he's been sneaking into her office at night and proofreading her reports for work - "

"I hate you," Tonks says, her cheeks flushed with suppressed laughter. "You're just the worst uncle. The worst. Refill my drink."

"With pleasure, my lady," Sirius says grandly, and refills his own in the process. "Where were we? Kicking my arse? Oh yes."

Tonks has obviously won this round, with her nine tricks to Sirius's pathetic showing of four. She shuffles in a distinctly smug manner, as Sirius complains yet again that whist is not his game and can't they play something more fun instead, like watching paint dry, or perhaps some Russian Roulette. 

"Slandering my only son's reputation all night, and here he wants to play a different game," Tonks says, shaking her head. She knows all the fancy moves, and she's got a tricky little wandless spell - kind of show-offy, if Sirius is being honest - to make the cards deal themselves. 

"Don't come crying to me, if Teddy really does turn out to be a changeling," Sirius says. "Because I told you so. Mark this date in your calendar, cousin."

"Alright, I'll be sure to do that," Tonks says, rolling her eyes. Sirius tilts his head and squints, leaning over the bar to stick his face in her sightline, and she laughs, batting him away. "Stop bothering me."

"Never," Sirius says, satisfied with her laughter. She's always so stressed when she comes round to the Hog's Head for a visit - quite obviously so, like she's begging Sirius to give her a night off, plonk her down at the bar and ply her with alcohol until she remembers she's only thirty years old and not eighty. She's taken to wearing a disguise lately, out in public, to avoid the press - her favorite one is an old, bald man that reminds Sirius of Horace Slughorn, creepily - but she usually lets it fall once the bar clears out, and it gets late enough, and they get drunk enough. Sirius is happy to share his little oasis with her - and with Remus too, of course, who shows up just as often, looking just as haggard. Apparently, all of Teddy's rambunctiousness was lying in wait until his parents got comfortable enough that they stopped expecting it. 

Abe makes himself scarce as soon as the paying customers are gone - as he usually does - so they always have the run of the pub to themselves. It reminds Sirius a little painfully of when he was young - the Head was always the Marauders's preference over The Three Broomsticks, which was always bustling with the younger students. There are some nights still, when Sirius gets caught off-guard, frozen with pain at the very sight of the corner table by the back window - and if he's not careful, if he drinks a little too much in the wrong mood, he could swear he starts to see the memories play out like he's watching them in a Pensieve. James and his honking, geese-like laughter - a younger Remus, with those wild curls he used to get in his hair, before he got old enough to teach himself how to use a comb properly. Sirius himself - a wild sixteen-year-old, brash with life and youth and happiness, arrogant with confidence in himself and in his friends. And little Peter Pettigrew - remembering him was the worst. How shy he was, how kind. How much they'd all loved him. 

Harry doesn't like to hear stories with Peter in them, and it hurts Remus too much to talk of the Marauders now - he prefers to focus on the present, which Sirius can certainly understand. And Tonks - while arguably the loveliest, best person in Sirius and Remus's lives (although in very different ways and contexts, for each of them) is not always the best person for Sirius to talk to about those days and those particular lost friends. She's sympathetic, and kind, but Sirius just feels restless and a bit (unfairly) angry at her, for not fully understanding. For not having been there, for not having known and loved them like he had. 

Usually when he's stuck in such a mood, he wanders over to Abe's room, and has a drink with him instead. He'd known them all too after all - not as a friend exactly, but he'd certainly sneaked them enough pilfered bottles of firewhisky throughout the late 1970s to at least understand some of Sirius's melancholy. Sirius also suspects that he used to be one of Peter's most regular customers, in that little stretch of time in seventh year when Peter fancied himself a drug dealer and went around trying to sell dragon horn dust to all of their friends. Abe probably took pity on him, Sirius figures. (He can't possibly have _smoked_ it. He's far too savvy to fall for second-rate hallucinogens.)

"You look like you've put on weight," Tonks says out of the blue, in the endearingly rude manner she has that reminds Sirius of her mother. "I think all that rich French food at Bill and Fleur's house is making you fat, Sirius."

"Sod off," Sirius grumbles. "I've been eating takeaway. Curry every night. It's fucking heavenly."

"They have curry all the way up here?"

"Abe sends out for it, from London," Sirius says. "Did you know the Shafiqs run a restaurant now? You can order through the floo. Tahiil was in the year above us, you know. His daughter married that grumpy cousin of Shack's, what was his name - Roger? Robert?"

"Richard. Remus told me that once, I think."

"He was an alright bloke. Hufflepuff," Sirius says, taking one of the tricks half-heartedly. Neither of their attentions last long on card games, much less Muggle ones, which have far fewer explosions than either of them are used to. "Anyway, I'll take that as a compliment, Tonks. Thank you."

"I just meant, you look better," Tonks says. "Since the, you know." She shrugs one shoulder. 

"The _episode,_ " Sirius says. 

"Right, the _episode,_ " Tonks replies, deepening her voice to match the drama of Sirius's. "Remus wanted me to inquire after your mental health in a subtle manner, so you wouldn't feel henpecked. So here I am, inquiring."

"It's adorable that he thinks you're subtle," Sirius says. 

"Isn't it?" Tonks beams. "Anyway, just tell me how you're doing, you plonker."

"I'm fine," Sirius says honestly. He'd stayed at Bill and Fleur's for a bit too long, he thinks, especially after little Victoire was born, and Sirius was given so many reasons to keep staying. It was nice to feel needed, especially by a young couple who were already overwhelmed with well-meaning family and friends who often didn't do much to actually _help_ so much as drive poor Fleur batty, and since Bill got all batty when Fleur got batty, Sirius often found himself in the weird and uncomfortable position of peacemaker (never an easy task, with the wild and wondrous Weasley family). And of course there was the issue of the full moons, which Sirius was only too happy to assist with, Bill being as new to it as he was. 

But moving out still felt like a relief. The little room above the pub is a relief, with the door with the lock that Sirius rarely uses, the curtains he rarely closes, and the Floo that's always wide open. Harry comes to call often, sometimes with Ginny or Ron, but mostly just by himself, and Abe splits his time between Hogwarts and the pub (which Sirius nobly runs in his absence). Hogsmeade is mostly back to itself by now, and the school is up and running this year, for the first time since the war - somehow, they'd coerced Abe into teaching transfiguration practicals to the sixth and seventh years three times a week, and to _everyone's_ surprise, he's actually quite good at it. (Sirius suspects that Minerva McGonagall has some _very_ quality blackmail material. When he's ready to see the castle again, Sirius plans on cajoling it out of her.)

"Seeing anyone?" Tonks asks lightly. 

"Yes, Buckbeak and I are very happy together, thank you," Sirius says, and she laughs again. "Don't make fun. It's a profound connection."

"Better not repeat that around Remus," Tonks replies. "He's still a bit tetchy about the bestiality jokes."

"Don't know what you see in him," Sirius says lightly. Tonks takes another trick, and Sirius sighs and tosses his hand aside in disinterest, reaching for the liquor bottle instead. They've nearly killed the entire thing, between the two of them. "I'm fine. I'm really fine, you know."

"I know," Tonks says fondly, putting her own cards aside, too. Holding up her glass for another refill, she grins, and looks so much like Andie that Sirius's heart twists. "But tell me anyway."

Sirius sighs, and itches for a cigarette. He's not allowed to smoke anymore, since Hermione walked out of the tent one night on the Hunt to find him burning his way through his last Marlboro Red and tore into him about lung damage, and now whenever Sirius glances at the rows of packs behind the counter at the chemist's he has a bone-deep, instinctually guilty feeling like he's just stepped on a kitten's tail, or made a baby cry, or something. (She apologized later, having been a little stressed - to say the _least_ \- at the time, but Sirius honorably quit for her sake, and the memory of her unmistakable look of relief at the news has been enough to keep him off of it ever since.) "Well, I drink too much and I haven't had sex in over a decade, but other than that I'm mildly alright, I suppose."

"There's that bird who took over the Broomsticks from Rosie," Tonks suggests optimistically. "She seems to like you! What's her name again?"

"Aria. And she's married," Sirius tells her, and laughs as she visibly deflates. "It's not about that. I'm not even - " _interested? In the right mindset? Enough of a functionally living human man to have even considered the thought of touching another person intimately? Or all of the above?_ " - looking for anything like that, right now."

"Oh, Sirius," Tonks says sadly, "you know my da always said if you don't use it enough, your prick will dry up and fall right off."

"Fucking hell, Tonks," Sirius says, sighing heavily, as she cackles. "Quit _bothering_ me. Christ."

" _You're_ bothering _me,_ " Tonks shoots back, without any heat at all. "Well, what else? You've been talking to the shrink from Mungo's, haven't you? What does he say about all your…" she gestures, presumably to refer to _your whole state of existence for the past twenty-two years._

"He thinks I'm doing fine too," Sirius says, shoving at her arm. "And we're too drunk to talk about my bloody therapist. Do you want some crisps? I want crisps."

"Only if you've got barbeque ones," Tonks says. 

"I might do. Oh, shite," Sirius says, stumbling over a discarded bar stool that he'd left on the floor, after kicking out two Hogwarts students for fist-fighting earlier in the evening. About a girl, it sounded like. Sirius had earnestly wished them both luck before kicking them physically out the door. "Don't laugh at me, you tosser! I'm emotionally fragile."

"It's just so refreshing to know that it's an inherited trait," Tonks says, "tripping over everything, I mean. Not emotional fragility - I'm fairly certain that's more environmental."

Sirius stands up a bit sheepishly, having successfully hid his clumsiness from Harry and his friends for quite some time now (although Hermione has seen it by now - always too sharp not to catch onto Sirius's nonsense, as usual). "Listen, feel as smug as you like, but don't tell Harry or Ron. They still think I'm cool."

"Yes," Tonks says slowly, her eyes going sarcastically wide, "I'm sure it would come to a great surprise to your godson, that you lied about that."

"Oh, fuck off," Sirius grumbles, and she cackles again. Family, he thinks. Typical. 

The _episode,_ usually referred to in deep, somber tones (and sometimes in a funny accent) was actually just a mild panic attack, especially when compared to some of the ones Sirius used to get during the war when he was shut up inside of Grimmauld. Those were much nastier - sometimes the panicky feeling would last for hours, worsened by the screeching from his mother's portrait, and the passive-aggressive, hateful mutterings from Kreacher. Sirius nearly did some very stupid things, driven to the ends of his endurance by that wretched house - so by comparison, having a minor (really, quite insignificant, in context) breakdown in the middle of a busy school-shopping day in Diagon Alley was not that big of a deal, considering. 

Harry had been quite worried though - hence, the therapist from St. Mungo's, who is an inoffensive woman in her late sixties that spends a lot of time gently telling Sirius things he already knows. Still, it's comforting, or something. Really just the act of keeping his appointments with her makes Sirius feel a bit better - like he's accomplishing something, even if the therapy itself feels a bit boring and pointless. And it makes Harry feel better, which is a plus. 

Sirius doesn't consider himself any worse off than anyone else who'd survived the war (both wars, technically speaking). Harry still has fits of temper and accidental magic that has nearly demolished entire buildings on five or six separate occasions, and the less said about Remus and Tonks's obsessive clinginess when it comes to Teddy, the better. Sirius knows Hermione's having a rough time with what happened to her at Malfoy Manor - and though she's far too proud to admit it, Sirius and Harry still had a near-intervention with her last fall when she started working so much it was truly starting to scare everyone. By comparison it feels almost selfish for Sirius to still be hung up on things that happened decades ago, inflicted upon him by people who are dead now. But that's another one of those things that his therapist tells him isn't true, that Sirius _does_ already know. At least on an intellectual level. 

"Perhaps you should get a pet," Hermione suggested once, not long after _the episode._ She was quite possibly the only person who didn't act like Sirius was about to start sobbing into his teacup afterwards, which Sirius was very grateful for, so he'd taken to bringing her lunch sometimes, when she could tear herself away from her office long enough to indulge him with a sandwich. "Perhaps _I_ should get a pet. Perhaps we should all get pets, and project all our emotions onto them instead of on each other."

"Do you miss Crookshanks?" Sirius asked. He was now living permanently with Hermione's parents, down in Melbourne, Australia. "I do. He was quite a lot of fun, you know."

"I never should've let you keep him when I was in Oxford," Hermione said, shaking her head in mock disappointment. "He ended up liking you more than he liked me."

"Untrue! We just killed a sparrow together one night. Quite the bonding experience, but of course it didn't lessen his love for _you_ at all, Hermione my dear - "

Hermione interrupted him with a loud, dramatic sigh, which devolved into a laugh, when Sirius tossed his napkin at her face. It was still rare, even years out, to see her laugh like that, and Sirius did enjoy hearing it. (Fancied himself quite good at making her do it, too.) 

"You should get an owl or something," she then said, in the definitive tone she often took when she thought she had a very good idea. Sirius often found himself agreeing with her when she used that voice, even when she was saying something he didn't agree with at all. "Something low maintenance, that doesn't require a lot of attention or care. But a companion. I can't tell you how much Hedwig meant to Harry - although he's probably talked about her to you himself, I imagine. But she was his first and best friend, before he even met us, you know."

Harry doesn't actually talk about Hedwig that often, the subject still being quite painful, and Sirius hasn't pushed. But her advice about a pet was fairly sound, and so Sirius has been considering a bird - not an owl, owls remind him far too much of Howlers from his mother - but some sort of exotic bird, maybe. A parrot. A cockatoo. A toucan. 

"There is," Abe tells him grandly one night, over curry takeaway and a rather disgusting bottle of wine, "a small, very brightly colored bird called the rainbow lorikeet, native to Australasia and Indonesia. Technically a parrot, although treated by scientists now as a separate subspecies. Very colorful, very loud. Perfect for you."

"Thanks," Sirius says dryly, through a mouthful of rice. 

"The male does a funny little dance, when he's trying to mate. I saw this in the wild, you see," Abe continues, "on a little jaunt I took down to Papua New Guinea. Sort of reminds me of the time you tried to woo Marlene McKinnon. Kind of like - " Abe sets down his wine glass and bobs his head back and forth ludicrously, flapping his elbows at his sides like a drunken parakeet. 

"Fuck you," Sirius says, shooting a wordless stinging hex at Abe's feet, who hoots with laughter and dodges it easily. "Every girl I took here was _swooning_ by the end of the night, McKinnon included."

"Don't remember much swooning," Abe says mildly. "I do remember one night I had to help you back to the castle, when some barmaid from the Broomsticks hexed your legs to stick together."

Sirius shudders. That had been, admittedly, very disconcerting and also quite embarrassing. Pomfrey gave him a potion to fix it and then sent him back off to the tower, and James had charged the Gryffindors admission to poke their heads into the sixth year dorms to gawk at him. (Made almost twenty Galleons off of Sirius's discomfort too, the fucking wanker.) "Don't remind me."

Abe chews like a cow, terribly messily (another reason he's low on the list of favorite flatmates: food in his _beard_ , ugh) and for a very long time, an affectation that Sirius is sure was developed in response to Albus Dumbledore's notoriously dainty table manners. But a solid man, sure in his principles and a dastardly wicked sense of humor that served him quite well, running a resistance movement made up of children (Sirius had been very impressed). And his friendship is often quite invaluable to Sirius. An unexpected friendship - but strong and sure, nonetheless. "Your godson keeps owling me about you."

"He worries," Sirius says, waving one of his hands and setting his bowl aside. "I hope you reassure him."

"I tell him the truth," Abe says gravely. He's kicked his feet up on one of the lower tables, and his wine glass is floating in the air beside his head. Every time he plucks it out of the air to drain it of its contents, the bottle floats up to refill it. "I told him you got drunk on Halloween and fell asleep face down in the kitchen."

"Oi!" Sirius shouts. 

"Well, it's true," Abe says. He shrugs blandly, scooping another mouthful of curry into his mouth. Sirius winces and looks away, not wanting to watch him masticate. The sounds are bad enough. "Maybe a rainbow lorikeet would help. Maybe it wouldn't. Shouldn't you try? Trying is good. It indicates that you might possibly give a fuck, Sirius."

"I do," Sirius argues, uneasy by the suddenly serious direction of the conversation, "I give plenty of fucks."

"I know," Abe says, oddly gentle. "But I meant, you should spare some for _yourself_. There's a difference."

Sirius shifts in his seat uncomfortably. "I do."

"If you say so," Abe replies, a bit airily. He has this way of rolling his eyes, without actually rolling his eyes. It drives Sirius mad. 

"Listen," Sirius says, a bit piqued, "since you're so, you know, emotionally healthy and everything - "

Abe snorts loudly. 

" - did you actually go to see one of those therapists they assign at Mungo's? Or did you just get drunk for several years and then pretend you were over it all?"

"I talk to my llamas," Abe says stubbornly. 

Sirius pauses warily, eyeing him with some concern. "...do they talk back?"

Abe shoots him a dirty look. "Maybe you should get an _ass_ instead," he replies. "You know. A male donkey."

"I hear they're quite gentle," Sirius says lightly. "Very friendly."

Abe snorts again, and then sighs, his breath rattling in his chest. Sirius tries not to overthink it; the man is almost a hundred and twenty years old, after all. But a wizard like Abe could expect to see at least one hundred and thirty - Sirius is working very hard on his worrisome tendencies, and sternly reminds himself that the wheezing is probably just allergies, or something. "To answer your question," he says somberly, "I got drunk for several years and pretended I was over it all. Although, in my case, it was more like a decade of drunkenness." He pauses to cough, and pounds his chest, which causes a whaff of dust to explode upwards from his cloak. "Not recommended."

"A decade of drunkenness," Sirius says, gesturing towards him, and then back towards himself, "a decade of imprisonment. Tomato, tomahto, as they say - "

"Not _quite_ the same," Abe says gravely, narrowing his eyes at him over his eyeglasses. 

"Fairly similar. Existentially speaking."

Abe sighs and waves the now-empty wine bottle away, which is stubbornly still trying to refill Abe's glass, in spite of itself. "Sirius," he says, in the tone of voice he uses when he's being completely sincere, which is rare enough that Sirius has to physically sit up to listen, squinting at him through his tipsiness so he doesn't miss any words. "The people who love you are worried about you mainly, by my estimation, because you're living with a man eighty years older than you." He waves one hand at himself, as if Sirius was going to get him mixed up with the other 120-year-old men hanging around. "Also tending bar, which you have to admit is a bit beneath you, considering how many NEWTS you got. Broke a record, didn't you?"

"Until Hermione came along and shattered it," Sirius says proudly. "Like it matters anymore, Abe. I was in Azkaban for twelve years, for fuck's sake. What am I meant to do? Who the hell is going to hire me? And to do what?"

Abe sighs, like this entire conversation is an annoyance, but that's how Abe always acts so Sirius doesn't often take it personally. "Sirius, you idiot," he says, leaning over with one elbow on his knee, so he can look him in the eye, " _anything._ You can do anything now. Don't you get it?" He rolls his eyes. "Getting a pet would be a start. Getting a job you actually like would be a better one."

Sirius considers this for a moment. Working? What, like, in the world? Among _people?_ "I haven't the faintest clue how to go about that," Sirius confesses, after a long moment. "Do I...what. Do I...write a letter? Inquire with a...committee, of some sort?"

Abe mumbles something in Welsh that sounds fairly rude. Sirius ignores him. 

"And how do you figure that, anyway - that I don't like working here? I like it fine."

"You do realize that barmen usually make tips, don't you?" Abe asks dryly. "I realize it wouldn't necessarily occur to you, to be actually helpful to our customers, but that is the accepted custom. They ask for things, and then you fetch them. And then they pay you."

Sirius squints at him again. "Sounds made up," he decides. 

Abe starts muttering in Welsh again. 

Sirius thinks about sitting like this with James, years ago, not quite a year after graduation. Sirius had made it only six months in the Auror training programme before realizing that half of them were racist and the other half were more than willing to ignore the first half's racism, and quit without notice to work for James's parents at their apothecary, which was the same job he held up until their deaths, in the spring of 1980. James, to his credit, starting working right away too even though his inheritance was large enough that he didn't necessarily have to (Sirius had suspected at the time, and still suspects now, that it had more to do with Lily's opinion of him than any actual desire to be a functional citizen of society) and had found a low-level job in the Ministry's records department that had come in quite usefully later on in the war. But for that first year or so, they were both similarly at loose ends together, in those few months before James and Lily got married and Sirius moved into his own flat in South London. They spent a lot of nights just like this one - sitting up and drinking, arguing without anger, teasing each other until they got tired of each other's company and plodded off to their bedrooms, mumbling at each other affectionately until their doors closed. Sirius's heart hurts, thinking about it now. Thinking about Peter Pettigrew bringing them hangover potions some mornings, about Lily's fond exasperation when she'd find them passed out together in the living room - the snap of cold air when she'd fling the windows open and order them to _wake up! Wake up, for fuck's sake, you look pathetic! I'm hungry, James, make me some eggs!_

There are moments, don't get him wrong, when Sirius lets himself sink truly low, into a mental place best avoided, when he thinks, _what good am I here anymore, wouldn't it have been easier if I'd just --_ but those moments are few and far between, these days, and it's mostly because of the people that _are_ still here. Harry, Remus, Tonks, Teddy. Hermione, Abe. Fleur, Bill, and Victoire. Even Ron and the rest of those loud, affectionately annoying Weasleys - where would they all be without them? - and the memories and old stories don't feel quite so terribly sad, when he has these beloved people to tell them to. Still, Sirius isn't sure if he's ready to go out into the world again, and pretend like he's a normal person. To get up each morning and sit in, what, an _office?_ As if life is just _like that,_ as if Sirius isn't still in a universe apart from the warm, sunlit world most people live in?

Unfair, perhaps. Surely Remus feels the same way, sometimes, though the subject is still too raw and bloody for them to discuss openly together, even now. One evening after the Battle, over steak and ale pie in the Hogwarts Great Hall (a little torn up, to be sure, but still fairly Great, despite everything), Hermione said something that Sirius still thinks about often: _we'll have to find a way through it all, won't we?_ What a concept, what a thought. A way through it all, indeed. 

"Could I have one of your llamas?" Sirius asks thoughtfully. Abe snorts. 

"No," he says. 

"Not even _one?_ "

"Stick with Buckbeak. He's easier than a llama," Abe says. 

"I would never dream of calling Bucky a _pet,_ " Sirius says. "He'd never let me fly on him ever again."

"And rightfully so," Abe says, rather sleepily, settling into his chair for a nap. His wine glass has floated gently to the floor, the lamp dimming in response to its owner's mood. The whole pub was like that - tuned into Abe's moods and emotions, almost eerily so. Sirius was used to it by now, but the first few weeks, it was bloody disturbing. "Lock the door, won't you? Clean up the…" he waves his hand vaguely, already falling into sleep. Sirius laughs at him softly. 

There are several options for what he could possibly want Sirius to clean, and out of affection (and a tiny bit of gratefulness, for the pushy conversation), he decides to clean them all. "Don't worry, my friend," Sirius says, waving his wand at the front door and listening to the padlocks slide shut satisfyingly, "I'm a _very_ good bartender. I'll take care of everything."

Abe snorts in his sleep, which never fails to be funny. Sirius hikes his boots up on the same table and sits there in companionable silence with his snores for a while, killing the rest of a second wine bottle, far past caring about the taste. The night is cold, but the fire is warm, and in the morning he would see Harry, Ron, and Hermione all at the same time, for the monthly little breakfast get together that Hermione insists on (and Ron and Harry both secretly love just as much, as loathe as they are to admit it). Sirius is old, but not that old - healthy, but not that healthy. He loves, and is loved in return. Things aren't so terrible, really. The pain feels earned, most days - pain that is justifiably sharp. Pain that James and Lily deserve, by virtue of the exquisitely vulgar, annoying, arrogant, and wonderful humans they'd been (not Peter, maybe, but that's a complicated question for another day - and perhaps another therapist). The annoying, ridiculous things are harder to remember, perhaps, because those are the things Sirius misses the most. The things that made them real, made them precious. Lily's haughtiness, James's ego. (Peter's lies.)

Maybe he'll tell Harry the story about the windows, tomorrow. Lily always left them open when she'd come over to Sirius and James's flat, on account of them smelling so terribly bad ( _honestly, what the fuck are you two eating when I'm not around,_ she was fond of saying), and James would always try to charm them shut to keep her from doing it, but she was too good, she could break his spells without even thinking about it. Then she'd usually charm them to stay open no matter what, which resulted in some very miserable nights during a cold stretch in March of 1978, and one morning James woke up with a chest cold and refused to speak to Lily or even acknowledge her presence for three days straight as a result. Since she was practically living on their couch at that point (some falling out with her sister, whom she'd been flatsharing with at the time) this was terribly awkward, and led to one forlorn, drunken night in which she made a halfhearted pass at Sirius, who nearly fell out of said open windows trying to get away from her. It was all very messy and funny in retrospect, and Sirius remembers with deep, keen fondness the three-way screaming match that ensued the morning after that had earned them all a stern talking-to from their landlord _and_ a nasty note on their door from both upstairs neighbors. 

Yes, he misses them dearly. The fucking tossers. 

"Give us a snore, if you think we should get a cat," Sirius says to a still-sleeping Abe. "A real grumpy one. Picture Crookshanks, but uglier."

Abe twitches in his sleep, and lets out a snore so loud Sirius could swear the glass on the windows rattles, just a little. 

"Good enough for me," Sirius says triumphantly, already considering breeds. "Feels healthy. Like a step forward, don't you think?"

Abe snorts in his sleep again. Sirius doesn't take it personally. He's very old, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> [the mating dance of the male rainbow lorikeet.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NejWbJ4FNas) sexy!


End file.
